Adventures and SideAlongs
by Kuroi In a Black Hole
Summary: Side stories and tags to Child of the TARDIS, Son of a Mad Man. Some will be expansions of chapters, some will be adventures mentioned briefly in the story, some will be contemplative and others expletive. Some longer and some shorter. Enjoy them all! Tags will be at the top!
1. Excellent Student, Confused Tutor

Hey Guys! Here's some side stories until I get a new chapter hammered into place! This one is tagged to Chapter 3 with Elizabeth I and stars Roger Ascham, Elizabeth's childhood tutor! Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is a Beginning~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roger Ascham was getting on in years. He had taught many a bright young pupil, though his brightest was now sitting the throne of England at the age of twenty-five. Elizabeth had been an amazing child, fluent in seven languages before her eleventh birthday and fascinated by any bit of knowledge she could find. He had despaired of ever teaching such a bright star again.

He had been proven extraordinarily wrong the moment a young, black haired, green eyed boy stood in front of him, smiling and asking questions about everything. He wasn't sure the boy was more than two! How amazing!

"Hello! Elizabeth says you were here teacher when she was little!"

Roger blinked. "You're supposed to address the Queen as 'Your Majesty'," he said.

Harry frowned. "She said I could call her Elizabeth. I like that name. Your Majes…majesty sounds weird." He made a face. Roger shook his head.

Strong willed wouldn't even begin to describe this child. He could see this battle over names would be an ongoing one.

"Alright then, young Harry, my name is Professor Roger Ascham. Is there anything you want to learn first?"

Harry's eyes went wide and he smiled. "I like math and reading and science. Can we do that?" Harry also loved history but his dad said he couldn't say anything about the future so he would ask later.

Roger delved immediately into a grammar book, intent on figuring out the boy's reading level before he gave him various science or math books. Harry flipped pages idly, reading whenever Roger asked him to and struggling more over pronunciation than over meaning of words. Though whenever he didn't understand something, he would ask immediately. It was refreshing, teaching someone who wasn't afraid to admit they didn't know something. It had much to do with his age, Roger supposed. He hadn't learned the social pressures to always be right yet. He hoped Harry's father had more sense in him than to teach him that particular downfall of humanity.

Another curious thing was not just the astonishing rate in which Harry learned but the vast amount of knowledge he already had. He had obviously not been to a former class before, he was much too young for such things, but he was already well informed of things such as the heavens, animals, languages and maths. It boggled his mind how well Harry spoke whatever language was put in front of him and it made him scramble for books, material, something that would keep that young, active mind learning without immediately handing him scholarly works meant for those in university. He was often tempted to though.

Harry was a joy to teach though. He was a wonderful student and shockingly bright and astonishingly happy with whatever was put in front of him. If Roger didn't remind him of bedtime, Harry would have happily read late into whatever evening he was there.

There was one thing though that Roger found strange about the boy. In all that he knew, his wonderful capacity for reading and math and science, he lacked a basic understanding of any time telling. His query towards Harry of what time it was was met with a confused look and "Learning Time, Professor." He couldn't name hours, minutes or even days of the week. And he didn't seem to see the importance of them either. It was most curious.

He tried to ask the boy's father one afternoon when he came by to pick Harry up for a horse back adventure. The conversation was peculiar indeed.

"Doctor, if I may have a moment of your time. I wish to ask you, is there any reason for Harry to have some difficulties with time telling? He is spectacular with numbers and excels in learning new knowledge but there is something about time that just does not get to him."

The Doctor's wide eyes and bright smile was off-putting. "Nah, Harry here just doesn't need it. What toddler does? Time-shmime. He'll figure it out. But really, what child needs to know noon from night? Or Monday from Friday? They all sort of blend together. Exciting days, those are the good ones."

"Still, it is an important skill, one to be taught in childhood. It is fundamental to our language and growth as human beings in a society that functions on such measurements." Roger was emphatic, trying to make his point.

The Doctor waved his concern away with a smile. "He'll figure it out. As long as he knows the difference between breakfast time and learning time and bedtime all is good."

Roger couldn't argue with that as Harry shut his book (a recent work of philosophy from a man in France) and bounded out of the door excitedly.

Despite the oddities, Roger would be sad to see Harry go. He doubted he would ever teach such a bright mind in his lifetime again.

~~~~~This is an Ending~~~~~~~

Thanks! If you all have any ideas for a side adventure from any chapter or something you want to see done, let me know!

Kuroi


	2. The Throne, Harry, and a Minister

Tagged to Chapter 3 with Elizabeth I. I was interested in how a scene with Harry sitting with Elizabeth on the throne would play out. So I wrote one. Enjoy!

~~~~~This is a Beginning~~~~~~~

"Can I sit on the throne?" Harry asked trailing after Elizabeth with all the excitement of a tiny puppy. He had the look of a small puppy as well. Those bright green eyes were unnaturally large and sparkled at everyone and anyone. It was as if anything he saw made him happy and excited and he wanted to know everything about it. They were also effective weapons to getting anyone to do what he wanted them to do. It was a powerful weapon in the hands of a two year old.

Elizabeth had seen it work on the stubborn cook, who had refused even her requests for sweets before meal time. Harry had wandered in there and, without a word, had been given a sweet tart and a pat on the head. The cook had sent a soft look after the boy's retreating back. The maids had giggled over him and snuck him sweets and toys and let him play with their tools. The stone faced butlers would let Harry touch their polishing tools and carry their tools and they smiled at him all the time.

Now he was using it on Elizabeth, following her to the throne room and alternating between looking at her and at everything around him. She sighed. It was hard to deny the small tyke anything he wanted. So here she was, ready to take the throne for the afternoon of listening to the lower ministers and on the verge of letting Harry sit with her. What would he ministers think?

Those green eyes sparkled at her and it didn't matter. She laughed and picked up the child, settling him on her hip.

"Alright Harry, come help me meet some important people. You can sit with me."

Harry squealed in delight. "On the throne! YAY!" Elizabeth enjoyed his enthusiasm. He wiggled in her grasp as she made her way past amused guards and up to the throne. Harry sat comfortably on her lap as she gestured the first minister in.

The man, an older gentleman from the northern districts of London, to his credit, didn't do more than blink once before he dropped into a low bow.

"Your Majesty…." He paused, unable to figure out a way to address the child sitting on his queen's lap.

"Harry," the queen said. "You may call him Harry."

The minister nodded, obviously perplexed but complying. "Your Majesty, Harry, I am here on behalf of the Transportation Department for North London…"

And so it went. Each minister had an allotted time with the queen, during which they presented their case or problems and the queen would consider them. Occasionally a foreign dignitary was announced and Harry excitedly informed Elizabeth of where exactly such and such location was.

"General Chang Wong from Hong Kong!" was announced. Harry leaned excitedly towards Elizabeth.

"That's in China! I love China! They have really good food!"

General Wong bowed perfunctorily to the throne, addressing them both in lightly accented English. Elizabeth listened with astonishment as Harry launched into Chinese. The general seemed quite surprised as well, but after a moment he smiled and replied, also in Chinese.

It was fascinating enough that Elizabeth let the conversation continue for a number of minutes before she tapped Harry on the shoulder.

"Harry, the general is here for a reason. I am sure he would love to talk to you later."

Harry nodded, looking slightly disappointed. "Ok, but he was telling me about ships and how they get built in China. I think ships are really cool." Elizabeth smiled. Trust Harry to be asking such questions of a general.

"General Wong, I must ask your forgiveness for young Harry here. He is eager."

General Wong shook his head. "It is my pleasure. He speaks Chinese very well for such a small child. It is wonderful to find such interest in our culture all the way in London." Elizabeth smiled. Little to Harry know how much favor he had won her with his impromptu Chinese conversation.

Once, during a lull in the activity, Harry grew restless. The next minister in, a lower dignitary from the southwestern districts, glanced up at the ceiling and had to refrain from falling over in pure astonishment. Elizabeth glanced up.

Instead of the ornate decorations she knew were there the last time she had seen it, there was a panoramic view of stars. She leveled a glance at Harry. Somehow, she knew, he was the one responsible. Harry grinned.

Ten ministers later and, during the lull, she told him to change it back. Very little business could be done while the focus of the visiting official was on the ceiling rather than on the problem.

Harry sighed reluctantly and twisted his hands around again. The ceiling reverted back to its original design.

"Now it looks boring again." Elizabeth refrained from chuckling. Only a small child could call several thousand pounds worth of decoration, art and glitter 'boring'.

~~~~~~~This is an Ending~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed!

Kuroi


	3. Late Night Discussions

Tagged to Chapter 3 - I loved writing Elizabeth I so I just did the first few side stories with her or that setting. This one was a favorite of mine to write cause it pulls from things I enjoy debating about, mainly religion, belief and how one defines things based on their own experiences. As a writer, Religion is always a fascinating thing and to get to play with the concept is always fun. There is no intention of offending anyone with anything written below. It's all just a theoretical discussion.

Enjoy

~~~~~~~This is a Beginning~~~~~~

The room was dimly lit, only a few candelabras lighting the corner where the two players sat opposite each other at a chess board. The pieces, elaborate mock ups of opposing kingdoms, were scattered around the board in a fairly involved game, several pieces having been decommissioned and now sitting off to the side, relegated as observers.

Queen Elizabeth I stared at the board, eyes narrowed in thought as she pondered her next move. Her opponent, the Doctor, a non-human guest at the palace who had taken to playing chess and debating various topics with her in the evenings, was one who could easily and handily beat her at this game. He never did, letting her figure out a strategy and employ it before showing her, step-by-step, how he would beat it in between discussing philosophy and morals and the value of bananas. He was a strange character but she wouldn't trade the short time she had with him for anything.

At the moment though, they were talking about religion. She knew, mentally, that the Doctor wasn't human. Knowing this begged the question of beliefs. Did God exist for his people? God was the Creator so if He didn't exist on the Doctor's world, what did that speak of Christianity? Did that lessen its value?

Of course, for everything, the Doctor had an answer of some sort.

"Oh, I believe in something Elizabeth. Everyone believes in something. It is a fundamental component of being alive. Whether it is a belief in a god, in many gods, in science, in truth, in a book or a person or a thing, belief is fundamental throughout the universe. One species on Lambda 78 believes fully that everyone must walk with their forward arm placed on their chest over their…oh, the equivalent of your stomach, in order to prevent the sky from falling down. It is an absurd belief, yes, I can see you laughing, but it is one they believe in fully. It isn't the belief that matters or the religion, there are millions of those for any given species, it is how you believe, if you use the belief for the betterment of yourself and others, if that belief brings good or harm to the world. It is the impact of that belief rather than the specifics that is important."

Elizabeth mulled that over. "Does that make any religion less important than another?" she asked.

The Doctor's eyes smiled at her. She wasn't sure how they managed that. "Of course not. Religion is meant to be a personal thing, something you hold high as a beacon of hope or solidarity or happiness or anything else you need to reach for. Your belief in God isn't any less valuable than mine in Time. They represent different things to us because life shapes your beliefs but it doesn't make them any less important than another."

"Time? How can that be a religion? Isn't it a constant? It moves forward and is represented in the past by records of events."

"You measure time in hours, minutes, seconds, days, months years, weeks right? Not necessarily in that order but you use those measurements to mark time." Elizabeth nodded. "Well, I know someone who functions just fine not even knowing what days of the week are, what hours, minutes and seconds are, or even how long a year is."

Elizabeth blinked. "Really? Who? Such a person must be strange, surely, not able to measure time properly. How does anything get done?"

The Doctor smiled. "Little Harry. Completely ignores conventional times, he does."

Elizabeth wasn't sure what to make of that. "Really? But he's so smart. Time is such a simple concept to grasp. Every child does!" It was outrageous that such a bright young child didn't know time. "Have you not taught him?"

A grin of amusement greeted her astonishment. "Nope. Never had a reason to. Days of the week mean little when they might change whenever you show up on a new place. Besides, he has a different way of seeing time. It's about the way he spends it. Learning time, Throne time, Bed time, Talk with Dad time, Play time, Adventure time. It's just a different way of understanding it. This is also a way to believe in time."

"I don't understand."

"Well, how do you believe? Do you worship on bent knees and prostrate as the Muslims do? Do you perform rites at ancient, sacred places as the druids did or take place in ritualistic sacrifice as the Aztecs?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure what the Doctor was getting at. "No, of course not, such practices are unnatural. I attend church, read the Bible and pray to Jesus Christ and to God for deliverance."

The Doctor nodded. "So you make your way to a house built for the sole purpose of worship to read a book that has gone through several dozen translations and pray to a deity that had a mortal son who became an anointed figure after he was killed by those you would call barbaric for his beliefs." Elizabeth's face went red.

"Well, if you put it like that…"

"There is wisdom in not dismissing any religion outright Elizabeth. Each person holds different ideas and values and morals. No other human's ideas will ever match up with yours."

"You asked how I believed Doctor. I believe in God and Jesus and the Bible as the Word of God. I do not believe as they do."

"Yes, but you also dismissed them outright as unnatural. Check." The Doctor moved his rook into striking position. Elizabeth hastily moved her king out of the way, searching for a way to kill the rook off.

"Is it wrong to view them as strange and not normal?"

"No, but it is narrow-minded. I didn't peg you as a narrow-minded person."

Elizabeth took the Doctor's knight out with her queen, only to promptly lose her to the Doctor's nearby castle. "How can one person ever understand or even accept all the different religions? Some of them are so foreign and different."

"By keeping an open mind and letting them exist without judging them. Learn from them."

"Is that how you do it Doctor?"

A smile. "Of course. My belief is more of a certainty than anything else so seeing others beliefs are fascinating. Every sentient species believes in something, it is a fundamental part of their structure. To see how that translates across peoples and planets and time is always interesting."

"But how? How can you not want to make them understand as you do? You are certainly capable of such a thing."

"Just because I believe in something doesn't mean I need to tell everyone else to believe in it. Even Harry will always have a choice to believe as he so chooses. My belief is very personal to me, as I am sure yours is to you. This is how such things work. To force someone else to believe as you do does not make your belief more right than theirs. Their belief has as much of a right to exist as yours does, no more and no less. Checkmate."

The Doctor knocked over Elizabeth's king and the conversation veered from religion and belief, which was giving Elizabeth a headache, and onto the game and how the Doctor managed to beat her this time.

~~~~~~~This is an Ending~~~~~~~

Alright, I'll admit, this has way too much of my own personal views than anything, but I also hope I didn't overdo it. But I thought it would be an interesting topic for the Doctor and Elizabeth to discuss, seeing how religious England was at the time.

Thanks guys!

Kuroi


	4. Rose Tyler's Story

Here is Rose Tyler's life, a short series of snapshots of her life from the time she was left on Bad Wolf Bay to the arrival of the Doctor.

Enjoy

~~~~This is a Beginning~~~~~

Her and John (he let her call him that, she wasn't comfortable with Doctor, and he didn't quite feel like the Doctor, not without the Tardis) tried to settle down, make a new life for themselves. Rose returned to Torchwood, Defender of the Earth and all that went with it, and John tried to find work in the scientific department. It worked, for a while, but they both knew things weren't really working out well.

Rose might be missing the stars with all her heart, but she could find a place on the ground, find a job, protect humans and aliens alike. She was good at it, she liked it. It made her feel like the Doctor, saving people, putting things back where they belonged. Keeping planet Earth turning for just a while longer. John was a different story.

Every night, before he joined her in bed that first year, she would find him under the stars, staring up at them, such longing in his eyes. Such absolute need and desire to be among them. He longed for the Tardis in a way she knew was more than just missing his home. The Tardis and him had a special connection, one that carried through into the metacrisis. It was slowly killing him, she could see, not being able to see it, be near it, travel. So when he finally told her he was going to Germany to hunt down some stray research, she knew what it really was. He did too. And he knew she knew. She kissed him softly, told him to be safe, and let him go.

What else could she do?

It only took a year, a year in one spot and he left. She didn't begrudge him. If she could leave, she would. But she couldn't not right now. Not with her dad sick, her baby brother going into school and her mother worrying over everything. And she was running Torchwood now, she realized.

She would get a call from him once every other week, just to let her know he was alive and well. They talked about his adventures, she told him she missed him, he missed her. She made it out to see him, wherever he was, twice a year. They enjoyed it, seeing in each other the things they missed most. She saw the Doctor in his eyes, his smile. He saw the stars in her eyes, would swear a bit of the Tardis was in her heart.

He called her, his fifth year in this world, and told her of aliens in Spain causing trouble and such. She gave him the go ahead to check it out. When reports of his broken, mangled body came in, most definitely dead, the calm that followed the brief storm of broken vases and glasses had everyone in her path moving out of the way.

She made it to Spain barely a day after the reports, and the aliens, squat, pink, warriors, all backed up slowly under the advancing glares. She programmed their ships into heading towards an impending supernova and kicked them off planet Earth. Then she went and looked at John's body. The broken and lifeless form lay under white sheeting, and Rose crumpled into the ground, unable to look at him more than once.

She had been expecting something like this for years now, it wasn't a surprise, really. But seeing him there, lying dead, motionless, lacking the frantic energy and life she depended on, to remind her of the Doctor, it was too much.

The coroner didn't disturb her, let her sit and cry in the corner, silent sobs racking her body, for the better part of several hours, and when she finally left, with orders to ship the body back to Torchwood headquarters, they nodded and filled out the paperwork.

After that, she went on every single solo mission she could. Her dad was confined to a bed, her mother helping Tony with his homework, and Tony was old enough to look after himself and his mum. Torchwood had a decent set of operatives. She wouldn't be missed.

She went skydiving, scaled Mount Everest, hiked Fujisan, battled through about five different species of alien planning world dominations and died at least ten times. After she woke up following her skydiving incident where she deliberately failed to pull the chute, she decided that she wasn't going to die, no matter how hard she tried. And did she try. The Grand Canyon was a great jump, barreling down the greatest waterfall North America was a blast and standing right next to a shuttle launch was exhilarating. Right up until the moments she died. Then she came back, and it started all over.

After a decade she made it back home, having established Torchwood worldwide and linked them all with standard issue comms. She took Torchwood by storm and restructured the entire command base. Her parents gasped at her appearance.

Gone was the London shop-girl with the bottle blonde hair and easy smile. Her eyes had changed, a bright gold that only served to remind her of the Tardis and the Doctor. The first time she saw them, she broke the mirror and her hand. Her brother, now eighteen and dating a boy named Lance, pulled her into a tight hug and said she should come home more often.

Her mum told her she didn't look a day older than when she had left. Her dad looked at her and smiled a sad smile. Said John dying had really done a number on her. Rose could only stare at him in mild agreement. It had been the catalyst.

In five years, Rose was now head of Torchwood, completely and fully. No one questioned her authority, no one denied her access to anything and no one refused her when she started a project to detect a breach in the void of the fabric of reality. She handed over the majority of the research herself, from John's notes.

It was also five years later that her dad died, his disease finally overwhelming him. Jackie Tyler wasn't far behind, going down in one of the last zeppelin crashes in recorded history. Tony and Jeff got married, and Rose was all too proud to hand her baby brother over to the tall, lanky man with the awkward smile and bright blue eyes.

And she was now in control of Torchwood worldwide. Everyone deferred to her, and she began to delegate to people in control of various heads of divisions. She became less of an active presence in Torchwood, more of a myth-like figure that would come in when there were major problems and clean them up.

Tony and Jeff adopted Kelly when she was just a baby, and Rose loved watching her grow up, would take Kelly with her to the offices, would teach her all she could.

Kelly died in a prototype flight vehicle crash when she was twenty five. Jeff and Tony never recovered, Rose closed herself off even more. Her family, sans Tony, was gone. Her niece was gone. Her one connection to the Doctor had died in a stupid clash with cowardly aliens. She went back out in the world again, just observing the race of humans, watching them, seeing as they grew, what they were doing to get closer to the stars. It was all she had to look forward to.

With some of the advancements in technology came the possibility for travel back to her universe. When Tony died at age eighty-five, Jeff right alongside him, she had nothing to keep her tied down to this world. Rose had never been keen on mathematics and she still wasn't, but she found people who were, who would listen to her ideas, and they tried to help her. But they couldn't quantify the possibilities, they didn't have the proper numbers and concepts of dimensions to solve the problem. The dimension cannon she had used before couldn't punch any holes through the fabric of reality any more, not without collapsing this reality, and Rose couldn't do that to this world. It held people, planets, a whole universe of life. So she searched for other ways. After visiting and seeing all the various higher mathematicians in the world and finding no success anywhere, she returned to England and her headquarters.

She spent the next decade hating anything to do with the Doctor, blowing up photographs of him so she could chuck darts at it, raging at the pictures, how he left her there, living without family and friends, never aging, never dying, all alone She blamed him for everything from her broken foot to the collapse of the first passenger space launch, went through so many of his pictures that one of her division head jokingly labeled a trash chute "Doctor Photos" and wasted so any tears on him that, finally she just slapped herself into the problems of the now.

It had been a century since she had been left here, a century. Ninety five since John died, eighty since her parents. Tony and Jeff died twenty years ago. She needed to do something about herself, she couldn't spend the rest of forever in this room or out trying to kill herself. She might never make it back to the Doctor but she wouldn't spend her life on Earth.

So she cleaned herself up, put in an appearance at the Torchwood division head meeting, established herself as the Commander, and became their heavy hitter. She replenished their stores of combat training simulations, trained the newbie operatives and whipped them into shape. She visited the scientific department, learned all she could, introduced new ideas to the geniuses and watched as they set off happily; she had learned a lot about extraordinarily active minds and knew they viewed her impossibly ideas as a challenge rather than a wall. They taught her the basics of the manipulation of various electronics and weapons and she ordered all weapons that kill to be locked into cold storage. She wouldn't have any part in killing, not unless there were no alternatives and she had tried all plans. She hoped she would never need to use the codes to unseal them.

People in Torchwood had short life spans, very often surviving less than ten years for those experienced, far less than that for those who weren't. If you lived past ten years, you were most likely in the science and research department or you were reporting directly to the Commander. She gave private lessons to the division heads and wanted them to survive. Still, it wasn't long before everyone who knew who she was had died, and she refused to tell the newbies. She was the Commander. It worked better that way. She could keep some distance between herself and those who died so young. The name of all those who died, she kept in a journal. Their name, their rank, age, likes, dislikes, family, anything to remember them by, because they would fade from the memories of those around them.

For fifty years she lived this way. She traveled between each headquarter with rapidity, teleports having been invented. She had tried the prototype out, knowing she wasn't going to die in the process, at least not with any sort of permanence. When the technology had been perfected, she installed it inside her office in each of her headquarters.

Rose would check up on the progress of the passenger shuttles to space, took the first one out to the moon a hundred and thirty years after she had been stranded on Earth. It was breathtaking. Being back out among the stars, seeing them in their beauty and outside the atmospheric shell of Earth. She spent five years on the moon, helping out with research, meeting people, making sure they were fortified against alien attack and establishing the Moon as Earth property and no longer neutral territory. Then she went back to Torchwood on Earth, establishing a link to the Moon base and relishing in having people up there.

When there was news of a trip to the Mars habitation for civilians, she jumped on it, buying tickets for herself and eagerly awaiting the day. The Doctor may never come back, but she wouldn't stay on Earth. She would go out to the stars, see what she could do out there, maybe remember her trips with something a little less painful than longing and despair for something she would never have again.

The Doctor, she would muse, never really understood what he put his companions through. Showing them the Universe, all of time and space, then dropping them off and leaving, and they would have to live back on their home planet, stuck to the ground and unmoving. Static. After a whirlwind trip with the Doctor, everything else seemed so dull and boring.

So when the alarms went off, the alarms that told her of a breach on the fabric of this reality, blaring through her rooms and shocking her out of her daily fielding of reports. She blinked, startled.

The alarms…they were going off. Had…had he really come through? Was it something else? But no, these alarms were set to go off in the presence of time energy. It could only be him….had he come back? Did he expect her to be alive? Did he even know what time he had popped up in? If she knew him, he probably had no clue. Did he have the same face? She didn't care, not really. She climbed shakily to her feet.

It took an hour of pacing to be calm enough to call up to two field agents, and longer to explain fully what she wanted them to do. They grid searched and found a blue box. A blue box with the words 'Police Telephone Call Box' written on the side. She barely contained herself.

She shuffled around, waiting for the acknowledgement from the automated systems of their arrival, then hurriedly pushed the elevator call button and headed up.

He was here, he was really here. She didn't know if she wanted to kiss him or slap him silly.

~~~~This is an Ending~~~~~

If there's anything here that you want to see fleshed out in more detail, let me know. I might not get it up right away, but I will work on it. I have 50,000 words to start on tomorrow. ^_^'

Thanks guys!

Kuroi


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